[Mr Rogers]

“Should Lutherans denounce their German roots because of Naziism”?

Should Lutherans put Nazi symbols in their churches to proclaim their German roots?

““The resolution...calls for Southern Baptist churches to discontinue displaying the Confederate flag...”

Nothing very radical in that! It would not affect any SBC church I’ve ever been in, so what is the problem?

[Wallace T.]

The Southern Baptist Convention itself has no authority over the individual, independent congregations and can only issue guidance. At most, the SBC or a state convention can expel a congregation from its fellowship. Since no one can cite an instance of an SBC church having a Confederate flag on their facility, the issue becomes: why bring it up in the first place?

The slaveholders are long dead, and most of the advocates of segregation are no longer with us. Baptist leaders like Jerry Falwell and W.A. Criswell, who advocated segregation in the 1950s, repented of their former advocacy in the 1980s. And both men are dead. This resolution represents a Christian version of feel good PC. It serves no legitimate purpose.

Further, there is no equivalency between the Nazi or Communist flags and the Confederate flag. The Nazi flag and the Communist flags represented totalitarian ideologies that engaged in conquest and mass murder. The South waged an unsuccessful war for independence between 1861 and 1865, and the honoring of that flag shows respect for the men who fought in this unsuccessful war. That is what numerous Confederate memorial groups have said repeatedly, and I am not inclined to brand them as advocating some hidden agenda.